Daily Mail Australia: The death toll from [two] earthquakes and tsunami that devastated part of the island of Sulawesi has risen to 1,203 – with the total number expected to climb higher still.
The tsunami, which was triggered after a magnitude-7.5 earthquake, ripped through the Pacific Ring of Fire and crashed into the Palu at 500mph, causing widespread destruction into the evening on Friday.
Figures collected by the National Police Headquarters put the number killed at 1,203 people. The death toll is expected to climb even higher. Search and rescue team have struggled to reach cut-off communities feared wiped out by the disaster.
Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said access to Donggala, as well as the towns of Sigi and Boutong is still limited and there are no comprehensive reports from those areas.
Government officials said rescuers could hear screams from within the rubble of several buildings on Saturday evening as they battled through the night and into Sunday to free those trapped.
‘The death [toll] is believed to be still increasing since many bodies were still under the wreckage while many have not able to be reached,’ Nugroho said.
Fears are mounting for the fishing town of Donggala, which was closer to the epicentre of the quake, but which rescuers have not been able to reach.
The town of Mamuju was also severely affected but currently impossible to access due to damaged roads and disrupted telecommunications.
Meanwhile, criticisms have been levelled at the country’s geophysics agency for lifting the tsunami warning 34 minutes after it was first issued, which may have led to confusion and exacerbated the death toll.
Many of those killed in Palu were swept away by giant waves more than [18ft high] as they played on the beach in the scenic tourist town.
The number of casualties was no doubt increased by the fact that hundreds of people had descended on Palu’s beach for a festival to celebrate the city’s anniversary, due to start Friday night.
TV footage showed images of destroyed houses in Donggala and areas that were once land now inundated with water. Aerial video also showed the battered coastline surrounding Palu.
Looters were stealing from a badly damaged shopping center in Palu that was not being guarded. They did not appear to be concerned about their safety, despite ongoing aftershocks and the structure’s questionable stability.
Residents were also seen returning to their destroyed homes, picking through waterlogged belongings, trying to salvage anything they could find.
Nugroho said 61 foreigners were in Palu at the time of the disaster. Most of them had been accounted for, but one South Korean was believed to be trapped in the ruins of the Roa-Roa Hotel, while three others from France and one from Malaysia were missing.
The survivors were to be evacuated to the Sulawesi city of Makassar in the island’s far south.
It’s the latest natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the ‘Ring of Fire,’ an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra, an island in western Indonesia, triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries. Last month, a powerful quake on the island of Lombok killed 505 people…
Some people climbed trees to escape the tsunami and survived the towering waves caused by the two earthquakes: the first, a 6.1 magnitude quake hit the densely populated region on Friday morning and was quickly followed by an even fiercer 7.5 magnitude tremor.
Prophetic Link:
“While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast.” The Great Controversy, Page 589